How to get brutally misled

1 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

The Christian Bible is an amalgam of all previous religions, made compatible (roughly) with each other and simplified to a crowd-pleasing level.

This is one reason that Christianity is growing worldwide: it is the simplest form of the message which is shared among the wise of all religious Traditions.

(This leads us to ask: is it esoteric wisdom, or a particular tradition, which conveys meaning?)

However, the Bible is also a translation of a translation of many translations, even before the texts were incorporated into the Bible.

This is one reason why Christian Biblical scholarship is as intense as the Jewish variant: to understand much of this stuff, you need to have a broad background in philosophy and history.

It seems to me however that the above passage gets love wrong. It could well be entitled "Love Makes You an Anal Doormat" and sent to all the Irish priests with voracious pedophiliac fingers.

Love is the ability to do what is necessary to make goodness in life.

Sometimes, that includes evil acts -- frequently, in fact. If you want to defend your land, you must kill; if you do not defend, many die or are enslaved. If you want to stop criminals, you must beat, shoot and jail them and deny their self-expression. C'est la vie.

It's depend on the meaning of evil. If "good" means doing what is right, just, and "evil" means doing what is wrong, if you always do what is right, you will never be evil. You don't have to hate to defend what you love. You can think of your opponent like an obstacle that you remove to continue your way, like a rock on a road. You don't necessarily hate the rock. Hate is the result of the ego who can't take that the world contradicts his vision of it. Hate is whining. A true warrior doesn't hate. He loves the challenge. A leftist hates. A neo-nazi hates. And whine.Than again, it depends on your definition of hatred.

(true) love can be seen as a non egoistic Will to live. Maybe I see to much in it.

It's hard to know what the writings of the bible really mean, because you would have to be in their heads to really know what was their stage of consciousness during the telling of it. A master and a disciple don't have the same meaning for words because they don't see the world in the same way. Beside, there is differents translations of the Bible in the same langage. Some are more egalitatians than others.

And not to bring this all up again, but I'm gonna do it anyway! The idea of Christianity minus Christ. I know it sounds ridiculous, but bear with me. The story of Jesus being born of a virgin, the story where he kicks the merchants out of the temple, the story where he is in the desert for 40 days and 40 nights. All those stories are great. But it's the crucifixion that kills me. Here's why:

Imagine you're a kid again, you're reading and hearing all these stories where the good guy beats the bad guy. But there is this one story, and you're told it's the story of all stories, the MOST important story, and in this story, a group of bad guys kills the good guy!!! I know he is resurrected and the implications are much more subtle than that, but I don't think many kids under the age of 16 will interpret it any other way. It almost amounts to saying you win by letting the bad guys and proles push you around. I think it's just too much for a young person to decode.

In the time and place we live in, I think only adults can decode that story. Perhaps in another time or place it would be/will be appropriate for children.

Jesus was pasted in atop the existing understanding like an obscuring layer. He was someone just about anyone (the 99%) could identify with. Peel him off and clear up the adhesive goo to reveal the old knowing. But then having lost the ninety-nine percent again you'll be almost alone in the esoteric, as it was for the sages before.

In the time and place we live in, I think only adults can decode that story. Perhaps in another time or place it would be/will be appropriate for children.

The story was never really intended for children. As the church grew in power, the story was transformed from a rather subtle and incisive narrative on the unification the individual to an easy means of herding morons by threatening them with damnation if they asked too many questions. I don't believe that the essence of Christianity as conveyed by the Bible is one that can be absorbed by the young mind. And nor should it, really. Children have enough trouble trying to understand why their parents are so bloody awful at being parents; philosophical musings on how to become a whole person are basically beyond the grasp of the mind at that stage. Are there ways to educate the child so that he/she can be in a better position to ultimately understand the essence of the Jesus mythos? Sure. I don't think anyone would contend that Sunday school has the slightest degree of usefulness beyond reinforcing the need to rigidly adhere to the rules and regulations of society. Christian education at the grade school and high school levels does pretty much the same thing, and fights an even more fruitless battle in trying to sway the student's will from the influence of his/her burgeoning sexuality (read; identity). The great failing of the church is that it is a faithless organization: it not only practices distrust, but utterly denies the ability of its followers to comprehend the true significance of the Jesus mythos, choosing rather to treat them all as if they were children unable to think more critically than is required to put a cracker in one's mouth.

The great failing of the church is that it is a faithless organization: it not only practices distrust, but utterly denies the ability of its followers to comprehend the true significance of the Jesus mythos, choosing rather to treat them all as if they were children unable to think more critically than is required to put a cracker in one's mouth.

It is the most popular religion in the world. Do most of its adherents really exercise a higher level of critical thinking?

Sometimes, that includes evil acts -- frequently, in fact. If you want to defend your land, you must kill; if you do not defend, many die or are enslaved. If you want to stop criminals, you must beat, shoot and jail them and deny their self-expression. C'est la vie.

Good and evil together make reality.

There is no escaping evil. Or hatred.

For they are essential to love.

Constantly you reference a really faulty definition of good and evil. Good is that at which all things aim, the actualization of their potential which is contained in their nature. Evil is a privation of this good, in other words it is any deficiency that creates an obstacle to the actualization of potential. Obviously it is against human nature to allow our children to be killed or molested, and obviously not stopping a person from doing so is to betray our nature.

Evil is not an aspect of reality, it is a lack of it. The nature of reality is to exist, and so its privation would be what creates an obstacle to reality existing more actually, i.e. awareness coming to a full understanding of reality and thus a part of reality consistently reaffirming its existence, ergo evil for reality is a lack of reality.

And the quotations from Scripture you provided are rather spot on in their understanding of love. The love described in those passages, in context with the rest of the Christian tradition and not meaninglessly isolated, is intended to create a portrait of Aristotle's virtuous individual, the magnanimous man, or great soul. A great soul does not become exceedingly excited or distressed at anything, and neither does he become deficiently excited or distressed at anything; he understands something for what it really is, and responds in accordance with its nature. This is love because love by its very nature has to be an expression of unselfish commitment, and in order to commit oneself to something unselfishly one must understand what the thing is truly before he can commit himself to it through action. An example of love is to fervently ask that a pedophile repent of his actions in truth after telling him that he will be executed, so his repentance can be made sincere by the urgency of impending doom.

The Christian Bible is an amalgam of all previous religions, made compatible (roughly) with each other and simplified to a crowd-pleasing level.

This is one reason that Christianity is growing worldwide: it is the simplest form of the message which is shared among the wise of all religious Traditions.

(This leads us to ask: is it esoteric wisdom, or a particular tradition, which conveys meaning?)

I think that many of the most profound thinkers in history would disagree with you. As has already been outlined countless times, the pretender to the throne that has gained sway within the world is an impostor, and Christ Himself said that not everyone who cries 'Lord, Lord' will be admitted into paradise. Furthermore, Christianity is not an amalgam of any prior religions but a fulfillment of the Christian truth implicit in those religions but unrealized (fully) by them. This is one reason why one can detect themes within Christianity that are uncannily similar to those found in other religious traditions, and another reason is that Christianity also recognizes some seasonal celebrations and values that are universal.

Ultimately you will all kneel before the Cross, either willingly or by compulsion.

Something tells me that you only read my posts far enough to surmise that I wasn't anti-Christian and then proceeded to make a series of assumptions about me which strangely seem to include my having an aversion to taking the life of another being; in reality I'm an advocate of the death sentence and the burning of heretics, and all of those other things one must do to protect society, as you put it. Have fun in the echo chamber.

Sorry guys, but Christ is everything in Christianity. To say he is just some "layer" is absurd.

True, it isn't Christianity without Christ. But Christ means The Divine and The Good (predating Christianity) which is something man cannot even perceive much less affect. Jesus however was the first hippie and readily disposed of by a mortal rabble. Was Jesus giving us truth?

Jesus and Christ may have been combined into the same meaning as agreed upon by the early church. Yet, they remain distinct nonetheless.

It is the most popular religion in the world. Do most of its adherents really exercise a higher level of critical thinking?

Worse still, Christianity certainly thrives strictly among average to lower intellect Americans, but its only substantial growth is now confined to the Third World. Elsewhere, it has effectively vanished or is only a struggling minority religion.

Sorry folks, save for the Orthodox churches to a great extent, today's Jesusianity is not the Christianity composite of accumulated Western thought.

The author of the above article could use a crash course in the distinction and reconciliation of spiritual law and natural law. St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica would probably serve as excellent course material.

It has been noted too many times that the Christianity that is most popular today is foreign to the Church that Christ intended to establish, and I am here to inform you all that this was intentional on the part of enemies of the Church in an attempt to destroy their greatest enemy, the greatest conservative institution, from the inside out. The Catholic (universal) Church isn't the only Church that suffered this attempted transformation.

It seems to me however that the above passage gets love wrong. It could well be entitled "Love Makes You an Anal Doormat" and sent to all the Irish priests with voracious pedophiliac fingers.

That's people turning scripture into a method for advancing themselves socially (whoring). Perhaps it is the most common form of LaVeyan satanic unholy sacrifice because it is ultimately selfish; prostrate oneself socially in order to mimic "do as I command not as I do" Jesus. That's one of the defining features of the faithless, disobedient and materialist Jesusianity Americans regard as Christian faith. You know you want to take out a second mortgage to adopt that Haitian family (once they get on their feet on public assistance you can boot them to the curb). The neighbors would be so jeolous.

While I don't really approve of Protestantism in any form, the experience of it from a rural perspective is quite different from the one you offered. I can see traces of it in the media though, in all of those ugly mega-churches that more so resemble a utilitarian shopping mall than a work of art like a Gothic cathedral.